Thursday, November 3, 2016

"Star Trek" Review: "The Conscience of the King" (December 8, 1966)

"The Conscience of the King"
Writer: Barry Trivers
Director: Gerd Oswald
Producer: Gene L. Coon
 

Star Trek has a longstanding open relationship with the works of William Shakespeare, taking episode titles, lines of dialogue, themes and characters from the Bard and liberally sprinkling them all across the franchise. It starts in this episode, which also is one of the most Shakespeare centred of those that follow this trend.

It's also a bit of an odd duck in these early episodes in that there's really nothing of a sci-fi element to be found here. This entire story could, with minimal revisions, appear in any number of shows of different genres. But in a way, this oddity helps the episode to stand out and feel unique. Kirk isn't dealing with alien mind games here, but rather with the dark parts of the human experience.


This is Ronald D. Moore's favourite episode of The Original Series, and seeing as he was behind the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, it's easy to see why. Not just because this is a dark episode, willing to push the characters as far as it can. But also because it's more interested in human nature than in sci-fi ideas.

The episode revolves around a company of Shakespearean actors the Enterprise takes aboard, of whom the lead player Kirk begins to suspect may be in fact the infamous Kodos the Executioner. Twenty years earlier, Kodos had been governor of an Earth colony faced with starvation, and made the choice to execute half the colonists in order to feed the rest, choosing who lived and died based on his own theories of eugenics. Only eight or nine of the survivors actually saw Kodos, whose own body emerged too badly burned for a positive ID.

It turns out everywhere Anton Karidian's company of actors performs, one of the survivors turns up dead, and now they're on board the Enterprise and it turns out two of the crew are witnesses -- Kevin Riley (last seen in "The Naked Time"), and Captain James T. Kirk. Riley would have been a small boy at the time, and his whole family was slaughtered except him. Kirk would have been in his teens, and the show is frustratingly vague on the details of why he was there exactly, but we know from other episodes his family is still alive, so he was just a witness.


Either way, what follows is an exploration of revenge. Kirk gets close to Karidian's daughter in an attempt to get to the man himself and ascertain if is in fact Kodos. Spock notices Kirk's obsessive behaviour and becomes concerned. Someone is going around killing the witnessess of the massacre. It's all about the extremes we'll go to. It's a much darker and more intense Kirk than we're used to, and it's quite startling to see him turn on that Kirk charm for Lenore and then turn around and be intent on confronting her father.

And he does confront him, but he can't figure out what to do with him. Kill him? How is that right? And Karidian, who is indeed Kodos, seems himself haunted by the past, and desperate to escape it.

Ultimately, it turns out it was Lenore who was killing the witnesses, seeking to "protect" her father from them, and when it all comes to light she completely cracks, and ends up phasering her father accidentally, which drives her over the edge and into a rehabilitation centre, convinced her father is still alive and giving performances.

It's melodrama, with murders and revenge and the hauntings of the past. In other words, it's Shakespeare.


Rating: 3.5 out of 4

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